Man Charged With 2 Counts of DUI Manslaughter and Vehicular Homicide in Deaths of Kathleen and Carl Boos on A1A

It’s been eight months since William G. Schwarz, 52, of Ormond Beach, was critically injured in a four-vehicle crash just north of Painters Hill on State Road A1A. The crash killed Kathleen J. Boos, 66, and her brother-in-law Carl Boos, 67. Kathleen had been the owner of Sew & Quilt Shop in Bunnell after a 19-year career in Broward County schools.

Schwarz had a long list of arrests to his name before the wreck, which landed him at Halifax hospital in Daytona Beach before he was transferred to Seaside Health and Rehabilitation, also in Daytona Beach, where he’s been since.

Friday afternoon friends visiting from South Carolina dropped by and were about to take Schwarz out to dinner. Just then Florida Highway Patrol Cpl. Pete Young, who’d been investigating the fatal crash for months, also arrived at the rehab—with an arrest warrant. Schwarz never made it to dinner. He was booked at the Flagler County jail on two counts of vehicular homicide and two counts of DUI manslaughter. He remains there today on $400,000 bond, though he asked his friends to contact his mother, who is 96 and in an assisted living facility, so she could come up with $40,000 to bond him out.

Florida has a four-year minimum prison term for DUI manslaughter, but sentences could run much higher on conviction, particularly with aggravating circumstances.

The crash Schwartz is accused of causing unfolded on March 11, a Friday, at 6:15 p.m., as Schwarz was driving a beige 2005 Mercury Sable GS 4-door—reportedly not his car, which he had totaled in a previous wreck, the trooper said. He was traveling south on State Road A1A, though according to witnesses “traveling” was not what described his driving patterns: “Witnesses to the prior driving pattern of Schwartz,” his arrest report states, “indicate that he was driving at a high rate of speed in excess of the speed limit. Furthermore, he was driving in an extremely reckless manner. More specifically, Schwartz was slamming on his brakes to stop a crash between the vehicle in front of him and his car, Schwartz was driving off of the roadway onto the grassy median, Schwartz was crossing the center line and forcing other traffic off of the roadway, and was swerving back and forth between the northbound and southbound lanes of travel.”

Just under a mile north of Driftway Terrace, Schwarz decided to pass a car ahead of him. He did so without checking whether the lane in the two-lane road was clear in the other direction. He struck the Fusion Kathleen Boos was driving, head-on, pushing the Fusion into the path of another car, an Infiniti driven by Brittinia Dimattia, 21, of Albuquerque, N.M., and causing the Infinity and the Fusion to crash head-on, and triggering yet another crash—of a Buick into the Infinity, none of whose four occupants were injured.

Witnesses at the scene had smelled alcohol on Schwarz’s breath. The investigation would reveal from a blood sample drawn at the hospital that his blood-alcohol level was .252 g/100 ml of blood. The legal limit in Florida is 0.08. At 0.25, coordination and orientation are severely affected.

The investigation concluded that he had been driving drunk and recklessly.

Schwartz’s address was formerly 9 Kim Road in Ormond Beach, though he no longer lives there.

Last November he was arrested in Volusia County on a cocaine possession charge. In June 2014 he was charged with reckless driving and leaving the scene of a crash with property damage. In 2011 he was charged with burglary. His record also points to several previous arrests in Hillsborough County.

What a terrible loss of a wonderful people. I hope this jerk gets what he deserves so he can never put another life in jeopardy. My heart still goes out to the family of the deceased. Mrs. Boos was personally known and deeply missed.